WHY DO MARRIED FOLKS CHEAT?

How do I start writing on this very sensitive topic which I am clearly passionate about. Much profound literary ink has been flowing on this theme and I wish to add mine in the following lines.

When women cheat, it’s often considered a scandal; never has cheating been as easy as it is now, when finding a willing partner to cheat with is a click or a phone tap away with the advent of technology.

Men have been dubbed natural ‘cheaters’, ‘permitted philanderers’ and the ‘potentially polygamous gender’, not same with the female gender, but what exactly drives married women to cheat? And do they stray as much and for the same reasons as men? These are questions begging for answers!

I will attempt them in this expose. It takes two to tango and you can’t clap with one hand! Since these cheating men are not gay, it then presupposes that they cheat with women too and makes women guilty of infidelity as well.

There are many reasons for infidelity in marriage ranging from revenge, boredom, the thrill of sexual novelty, poverty, greed and discontentment, compromise, excess ambition, sexual addiction and lack of discipline. I will attempt a discussion on five reasons hereunder:

1. For the Thrill of the Affair: Man cannot live without joy; this is why we all become passionately addicted to carnal pleasures as veritable alternatives which are at best pangs of boundless delirious excitement in the glare of the deficit of true spiritual joys and soulful contentment!

We are all victims of pleasure and vulnerable to sexual excitation and boundless fun! Human beings are given to thrilling adventure! There is a still evil but soothing voice chanting in the head of humans ‘Life is short, have an affair!’ There is this attraction about the elusive allure of an affair: keeping secrets. Stolen water is sweet- Proverbs 9.

Men keep mistresses and ‘side chics’ for the thrill to preserve their wives at home! They stray with different women during their marriages on the ground that no single woman can validly receive all the bullets in their arsenal. There are so many ‘bedmatic’ adventure that they can only experiment with the unmarriageable ‘side chic’.

Having an affair pumps the adrenaline of the cheating spouse and gives him or her ephemeral ‘joy’. It is like a drug, a mad rush sending shivers of soothing sensation down their sweetly guilty spine! You know what it’s like when you fall in love with someone or your spouse? It’s like that when you have an affair, all over again. It takes the fear of God, discipline and Holy spirit not to yield to its compelling dictates…

2. To get more sex when deprived or grossly unsatisfied and for attention: The truth is that majority of the time, motivations for infidelity differ by gender. Men and women are not wired the same way! Men cheat because they can, women cheat only If they must!

Sexual variation and preference lead to different motives for cheating with men searching for more sex, better sex, exciting sex or attention (variety is the spice of life) and women looking to fill an emotional void.

Men are more likely to cite sexual motivations for infidelity and are less likely to fall in love with an extramarital partner! That’s where it ends-for the fun of it! Women however tend to have an emotional connection with their lover (marital or extra-marital) and are more likely to have an affair because of loneliness. Never for a moment think that your woman who feels a deep gulf of emotional emptiness will not cheat! She will If only to fill the void!

When a woman undergoes hormonal changes, major surgery(ies), has had a long monotonous married life for years, undergo major weight loss or weight gain and multiple plastic surgeries, she will begin to look for boundless excitement outside of what we can consider a stale marriage and an upturned sexual life to reassure herself of her sexuality, feel good about herself and ascertain her validity.

The mirror as a reiteration of her acoustic vanity can no longer do the magic, compliments from strange people especially men will try, her husband needs to spice up their love life or she will resort to having an affair for ‘casual encounters’. Anytime a married woman suddenly feels very lonely in the night, bored and unexcited, watch it! She is a willing prey for an affair If only to see what would happen!

Statistics show that more than 40 percent of married men have had an affair, compared to 15 percent of married women, but that number for women has spiked in the last two decades, up nearly by 40 percent. Married women are more brazen and daring to cheat now due to advancement in technology and civilisation unlike in the olden days. However, our paternalistic society still judges and frowns at cheating wives much more harshly than cheating husbands.

The reality is that women tend to be more unhappy with the relationship they are in while men can be a lot happier in their primary relationship and also cheat. A man cheats not because he doesn’t love his wife but as a baseless excitement whereas a woman who genuinely loves her husband can’t bring herself to cheating on him!

The happily married wife is most unlikely to have an affair! Women are more interested in supplementing their marriage or jumping ship than men are- for men, it is a secondary strategy as opposed to an alternate one! My private informal research shows that only a minority of women who had affairs were happy or very happy in their marriage whereas majority of men who had/have affairs were/are very happy in their marriage. It is just a norm, pure fun to them!

3. To revive the spark of sexuality and as an available solution to the search of an emotional connection: This is most common to women! When a married woman has no friends close by, left alone frequently while her husband works long hours, stay apart or together but bored, it doesn’t matter that her husband is good to her or provides for her- that in itself might be unexciting to some women.

A woman’s husband might even be the ‘best friend someone could have’, but If the spark and sex are gone, then you are face to face with a cheating wife in transit! Her next move would be to seek company and a little ‘romance’- online and offline!

She would do anything to get a man who would give her all of the stuff her husband isn’t -attention and affection, wild sex and communication. Never allow a vacuum to be created in your wife’s heart as she will fill it with another’s love or lust! Never leave your woman unsatisfied in bed!

When a woman feels lonely, not connected, unsatisfied, not close to her partner or feels she is being taken for granted, her next succor is an affair! They want to have someone who would look into their eyes and make them feel ‘sexy’ again! This is the whole mantra of searching for an emotional connection with the opposite sex. Every affair is different by the way, and so are every woman’s reasons for her involvement in infidelity.

4. Personality weakness! Most married people cheat because they experience a moment of weakness- that is all that is required to break the seal of fidelity! And once its broken, the floodgate of cheating is heralded without end. ‘Once de be is forever de be’.

A temptation comes along and they fall for it. It’s asinine to keep making lame excuses for why it happens in marriage because it just happens! We are fallible humans after all. We make excuses every time we stray from God’s grace- it is an addiction therefore, it is an illness; ‘they are born that way-it is genetic, he or she was raised poorly, the woman doesn’t know how to take care of a man, he is not satisfied at home and so on- the wife ‘pushed’ him out’.

All these excuses to break a covenant- a sacred oath we took before men and God. Until we realise that the marital oath is a vow made before the Most High God, cheating would remain an allowable human frailty and a prominent feature in our homes!

I read recently that DNA experts gave shocking statistics that 3 out of 10 Nigerian men are not the biological fathers of their children. This is worrisome. Throw in the percentage of cheating wives who insist on the use of protection (condoms, safe period coitus and contraceptives) and as such have no children from the illicit act as this figure represents the careless, carefree and irresponsible wives who allowed strange men to score ‘goals’ in their husbands’ ‘goal posts’.

This expert analysis as recently reported only shows a thing- that Nigerian wives are among most unfaithful in the world with 30% of their children procured as a result of adultery. This is how bad and close infidelity has reached our shores!

5. Curiosity! The truth is that every human (normal man or woman) has a ‘cheating trait’ in them, we were all born with the seed of curiosity in us. There are cases where our ‘innocent’ curiosity is aroused to something we have never seen, heard of or done before and you want to explore.

Humans have ‘exploratory traits’ in them if the hunter can get to it, before you know it you cannot help the situation. Even the most vigilant can be taken unawares via inappropriate relationships and illicit friendships.

The weak are those who see the hunter throwing a bait at them and they easily compromise. The same exploratory behaviour in a person that made him or her show interest in a man or woman and they eventually get married does not disappear after marriage- Sadly and strangely, it is still there!

This is why some jealous husbands are always edgy, ‘protective’ and on guard as someone else can come up with a better strategy and get you curious to want to explore again if you are not on guard. Even if you are on guard, someone can pretend and get into your heart from the back or side door.

This is the cruel reality! Never let your weak wife get unnecessarily close to a courteous and caring moneybag willing to offer her irresistible bribe or a ‘word bank’ capable of offering her sweet vibes!

There also some cases where a partner denies emotional connection to the other because they are busy pursuing other things more important to them thereby leaving their partner emotionally vulnerable to another person’s bait. This is the letting off your guard conundrum accentuated by the natural curiosity of humans (man or woman), factor in the fact that most people will ‘cheat’, cut corners or take an advantage when they are absolutely sure they won’t get caught!

In conclusion, marriage is no joke as it is a promise between two serious-minded consenting adults with Almighty God as a witness! Think about that for a minute!

We promised God we would honor our spouses. We swore an oath to fidelity but break it so soon thereafter. Hmmm! The thought of that alone should validly scare us out of our wits! Let us all stop all forms of infidelity in marriage! Stick to your partner and enjoy peace of mind and pure bliss! May God help bless your marriages! AMEN!